The Contra Costa Times is running a series of in-depth examinations of community colleges. Today’s second part of a four-part series is headed Unready soon quit college.
The article opened with the following comment:
Community colleges nationwide labor under the weight of ill-prepared students. Some colleges estimate that nearly every student is unprepared in math, reading or writing — or all three.
The author, Matt Krupnick, supported his argument with a series of statistics:
- About 30 to 40 percent of the students in one pre-algebra class will fail to pass the course.
- Nationwide, nearly every student is unprepared in math, reading, or writing, and in many case, deficient in all three.
- In California alone, about 670,000 students were enrolled in basic English and math.
- Roughly three-fourths of students who take placement tests require remedial math.
For about twenty years, I taught in several 4-year and community colleges. Over that time, I accumulated enough anecdotal examples which, when added to the experiences of colleagues, solidly support Krupnick’s report.
To his list of the normal run of student shortcomintgs illustrated above–reading, writing, and math–we also include the academic buzzwords, “critical thinking.”
Given that students can hardly read or write, it follows naturally that they are totally unable to analyze material and communicate their opinions in a coherent, understandable form.
We also note that virtually none of our students possessed a basic knowledge about the world around them. Geography is a prime example. Out of a class of 35 students, one might be able to locate Iraq on a map. And more than you might imagine, couldn’t find the United States.
In my own fields, government, political science, and American studies, none of my students understood the basic structure of the United States government as taught in 8th grade civics classes. So many basic facts were missing from their minds that I found myself spending a half a semester or more teaching them these missing facts. For example, no one had ever read the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights, even though they were constantly claiming “constitutional rights” that did not exist.
When it came to history, almost no one had any sense of the timeline of important political events. It wasn’t unusual for a student to believe that the Civil War was fought in 1941 against Germany, or that the 50th state was admitted to the union in 1898.
One student illustrates a lack of historical sense combined with a dearth of information about current events. This very bright student insisted strongly that the state of Maryland still prohibited inter-racial marriages. Rather than argue, I contacted the office of a Maryland Assemblywoman and asked for a copy of the current Maryland law on the matter, which I received a few days later. I presented the law to the student, who silently read the brief text. The ban on inter-racial marriages in Maryland had been eliminated in 1968. I felt sorry for having embarrassed her, but she eventually became my best student and a friend.
While many argue that minor facts like these aren’t necessary to the process of critical thinking, they forget that facts are essential to support a reasoned argument. Otherwise, discussions become irrational shouting matches and name calling exercises, roughly equivalent to our modern political campaigns.
We also need to factor student attitudes into the discussion. A friend once jokingly remarked, “The major impediment to learning is testosterone.” He referred to the tendency of male students to spend their time in class avoiding any serious attempts to learn. They arrived late, left early, slept, and spent a great deal of time on their cells. In general, they displayed the classic posturing behavior of male peacocks attempting to attract a mate. To these kinds of individuals, college was not a learning environment but a place of encounter.
Although we could add many more elements to the discussion, let’s end with a couple of all too common phenomena regarding teachers rather than students. Too many teachers bring a show-biz approach to the classroom. They confuse teaching with acting and spend their class time emoting rather than engaging their students. One of my cohorts once observed that teaching is the next best thing to show business. He had a point.
And more instructors than we might be aware of want to be liked. In fact, they want to be liked so badly that they adopt the dress, hair styles, jargon, musical tastes, and even the manner of walking of young people. These teachers are usually highly popular, not because of their clumsy attempts to meld with the youth culture, attempts ridiculed by the students, but because their wanting to be liked leads them to assign high grades irrespective of effort and learning.
My own method of teaching was systematic and business-like, a thoroughly unpopular approach. I operated on a simple principle: complete the assigned work, get the grade. Fail to complete the assigned work, don’t get the grade. Students had a difficult time with this method, but eventually as word got around, they knew what to expect and completed the work to the best of their ability. In a few minds, I was, to coin an oft-despised phrase, fair and balanced, and to those with a sincere desire to learn, I was always eager to talk about politics. I loved discussing the subject one on one or in groups. That part of the job was worth all of the minor irritations.
At this point in time, solutions to a lack of preparation and poor learning attitudes seem almost beyond reach. How do we change a culture that has evolved over a long period of time? If placing blame is a topic on the table, who are we to blame? There’s enough to go around.
In the end, however, blame is counterproductive. The answers lie in sustained hard work. There are no magic bullets.
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Alex Tourk, Bureaucracy, Current Events, Politics, Power | 
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Posted by Angelo Saxon
